In the trials, people with PTSD will be treated either with conventional psychotherapy, or with therapy plus MDMA. (Nobody is planning to use MDMA on its own; it helps the therapy but does not replace it.)

Ingmar Gorman, who will be running one of the trials (and was recently on our podcast about microdosing), tells us that the drug seems to help people who don’t respond to existing treatments—and that the effect seems to last for at least a year after treatment. If it passes the trials, MDMA could be available for patients in just a few more years.